


Let's pretend...

by incandescence



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Gen, I made Inoo and Chinen hug, Inoochii bromance, Though it's not on an island, You're welcome brats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2654594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incandescence/pseuds/incandescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Chinen, an embrace can mean many different things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's pretend...

**Author's Note:**

> One hundred percent inspired by this [tweet](https://twitter.com/0x0dream0x0/statuses/519042357669281793), where both Inoo and Chinen pick each other to bring to an uninhabited island and Inoo wants Chinen to hold him. They are totally bros. /waves her handmade-with-love Inoochii broship flag.

Years of habit causes Inoo school his face into one of nonchalance the very he runs into Chinen in the agency foyer, but Chinen is having none of it, an eyebrow raising almost immediately after Inoo's "morning~" leaves his lips.

"What's wrong?" is Chinen’s own greeting to him, and Inoo almost laughs because Chinen never lets anybody hide anything from him, ever. Inoo has never been able to find out what part of his behaviour sent warning signals to Chinen every single time, though though there was once a few years ago he tried to act differently each morning. Now, Inoo’s gotten used to Chinen being one of the very few who can see right through his cheery demeanour.

Nothing in particular happened recently, but somehow he’d fallen into a sombre mood the previous night, and woke up in much the same way. It happens. Good food can help sometimes, or remembering the dance moves before the instructor has the chance to yell at him. Someone laughing at one of his jokes is another quick fix. He's not sure if this is because it happens so rarely. 

“Woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” he shrugs. Metaphorically speaking, he’s not lying, though Inoo briefly considers telling Chinen that one side of his bed has been pushed to the wall since forever, just to see how his friend will react.

“Left side or right side?”

“The foot of the bed, and I somersaulted onto the floor," he replies without skipping a beat as they amble down the hallway together, arms swinging freely and bumping each other on purpose.

“Then to balance it out,” Chinen explains patiently as though describing a maths equation to a friend, “next time you should try a backwards somersault afterwards.”

The purpose of these banters is to see how long they can go before the other laughs and loses, but right now Inoo can’t help it – he snorts and laughs so hard he has to stop walking. Their eyes meet, and they both burst into snickers.

“I’d need to actually be able to do a backflip in the first place,” he says in all seriousness when he stops laughing, but that just causes Chinen to lose it again and he has to frogmarch the triumphant winner all the way into the currently-empty dressing room.

When they cross the threshold, Chinen wriggles from his grasp and bounds to the middle of the room. “Come here,” he demands, turning around, and it’s a testament to how well Chinen has perfected his craft over the years when Inoo allows himself to gravitate towards the smaller boy without hesitation, and be dragged to the sofa and into warm arms.

*

“It’s okay to cry, you know.”

Chinen starts from his curled-up position – he’d thought the others wouldn’t get back to the dressing room for a while, having all gone out to get a drink, a smoke, or some fresh air. From experience, Chinen usually has the room to all to himself for about twenty of the thirty allocated minutes of free time.

Yet here Inoo is, standing in front of the sofa, holding out a drink from the vending machine. “Thirsty?” he asks, smiling. Chinen wants to cry again and he feels even more frustrated with himself.

“Not… _hic_...crying,” he insists, but he knows that his tear-streaked face gives him away.

The can is pushed into his hands despite his half-hearted protests, so Chinen scrambles a little to give Inoo some space as he plops down on the sofa beside him. “You must be dehydrated,” Inoo says, the usual hint of amusement lacing his voice as he slouches in his seat and crosses one leg over the other.

“I didn’t cry that much,” Chinen mutters, shooting Inoo a glare, but he cracks open the can of tea over the older boy’s soft chuckles anyway. He can’t stop himself from emitting a sigh of content as the warm liquid hits his throat, and when he’s drank about half he passes it back.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, still embarrassed. Chinen swings his legs on the sofa a bit while he contemplates how to escape the awkwardness of the situation, but Inoo remains oblivious, finishing off the rest of the can in one swift gulp. Chinen stretches all of his arms and legs out, then promptly yawns. He sighs. With only about ten minutes of precious time left, there’s not enough for a sufficient nap, but right now, he’s seriously considering faking it.

He starts to sway, but then Inoo turns towards him and holds out his arms without saying a word, all traces of humour now gone from his face. Chinen is startled because they’ve never been close, but he leans in without thinking about it, because Chinen is used to hugs from all sorts of people. 

To Chinen, an embrace can mean many different things. His parents’ arms tell him he is loved, that he is treasured, that he is warm and safe. Senpais inspire him to work even harder to reach his dreams, even though warnings of tough days ahead underline their tired eyes and never leave. With Inoo, that he isn’t alone in this journey is reinforced even more than synchronised dancing and shared dressing rooms.

With Inoo, Chinen feels as though even ten minutes is enough to heal.


End file.
